Wednesday, 30 January 2013

We had some really nice weather during the day, it was a bit windy but the sun was shining and it was bright enough to use the Heliar 15mm again. It is a great lens but feels quite strange to use after all the time with the Nokton 35mm.

Tuesday, 29 January 2013

While walking past St. Paul's there were a lot of photographers taking pictures with tripods from different angles so I assume it was a group outing, unfortunately I had to rush to get my train so did not have time to chat with them.

Monday, 28 January 2013

Took this during my usual lunchtime walk, although it was raining I continued taking pictures and walking around the City.
I took two pictures of this scene, this one and one much closer. I prefer this version since it shows more of the scene, the person is smaller and the wet floor with the reflections creates a better mood.

Sunday, 27 January 2013

Went to Sevenoaks to get out of London and visit Knole park again, unfortunately the mansion was closed but the deer park was open and nice for a wander before heading to a local pub for lunch and drinks.

Thought of posting a small series of pictures but only really liked this one so no series for this time.

Saturday, 26 January 2013

While out for a walk in Greenwich I saw the moon rising and had an idea for a picture at the O2, unfortunately by the time I got there with the bus the moon was much brighter and higher than before so the picture did not work as expected. I would have also needed a wider lens but sometimes you can't have everything and need to make do with what's there.
This is the picture I like most out of the ones I took, I cropped again to square format.

The trails in the sky are from the Emirates Airline and not from planes or just reflections.

Friday, 25 January 2013

I liked the way she was standing in front of the bench looking at the bright and empty doorway in the front, I took it in 3:2 format but thought of it as a square picture but was too lazy to change the settings in camera so cropped it afterwards.

Wednesday, 23 January 2013

Took this on my way home and liked the colours and the light coming from the car and big spotlight.
I shot it at f1.2 but could have chosen a higher aperture as there was enough light, still, why have a f1.2 lens if you don't use it at f1.2 occasionally at least.

Monday, 21 January 2013

It all started with a candle and a clock on the day 5 years ago, it was also a Monday but we had no snow then and I knew a lot less about photography or blogging.
This below was the very first picture of my 'Ricoh GR Diary' blog.

When I started this blog I needed something to keep me taking pictures every day rather than just carrying a camera back and forth and never using it. It was always planned as a personal project and I highly doubted anyone but me would even look at it. But a few comments from Wouter and other bloggers later, I realized people were actually looking at my blog.
This made a big difference, for one it inspired me to keep on going even when in doubt or when I did not have enough time but also meant there was more pressure to not just post any picture but a picture I can share with others. Over the years this was at times a very difficult task as some of you who are doing a similar 'photo-a-day' project have experienced.

One of my biggest surprises came while visiting Photokina in September 2008, not only did I get to talk to Ricoh representatives there but they actually knew my blog and were following my impressions of the Ricoh GRD cameras. While meeting them I also first played with the idea to write camera reviews, met Pavel from the Ricohforum and decided to plan our very first Ricohforum meetup and got the invitation to visit the Ricoh factory in China.

A lot has happened in 2008 and this was very motivating, not least meeting some fantastic people from Ricoh, Photographers and Ricoh enthusiasts at the Ricoh meetup and through my blog in HK and Macao. I realised that my blog does matter and it pushed me to keep on going even on days when I was not inspired or had not enough time due to work.

Over the years there have been a few more Ricoh meetups and I have written quite a few reviews of Ricoh cameras, the reviews are always the top posts on my blog when it comes to views and comments which is nice considering the work it takes to write a review although I would prefer to get more views and comments on my pictures ;).

Some of the best things that happened to me through my blog, next to meeting some fantastic people from all over the world, is Ricoh asking me to do a promotional book for the Ricoh GRD III, you can see and order the book here, Ricoh using my pictures to advertise the GRD III in Germany at Foto Koch, me selling some pictures to use for CD covers by Nancee and Clever Stranger, having one of my GRD I pictures chosen for all promotional material for a concert at the Barbican (see picture below) and again to meet some great people through my blog who kept me going.

I have tried to make some changes and even temporarily split the blog into two, one for photos and one for reviews, tried to move it completely to Wordpress and even took a few short breaks to figure out what to do next, just to end up back where I started. This goes to everything as even my design has not changed much over time. Sometimes keeping things simple is a good idea and so far it has worked well for my blog.

Having said that, there is always time for change and I believe the time has come to make a bigger change this time. I am not completely sure how or what exactly needs changing and most important, when I will have the time to do it but I know a big change is in order and this will be soon.

There are some photography related projects I have in mind and some I had in mind and wanted to do for a while but work usually got in the way so I will try to take the time and get them done this year.

What do you think, what needs changing on my blog and what do you like and would prefer to leave as it is?

And finally in order to keep up with the theme of the blog a picture from today.

Sunday, 20 January 2013

While we had some snow in the past days, it only started coming down properly today. Since it is a Sunday people were all out in the park and every slope was full of people with sledges and every flat area had people building snowmen.

I like it when it snows and could not resist walking around taking some pictures, the first one is taken and processed with the Nexus 4 and the rest are all with the GXR A12-M and the GR lens. I decided on the GR lens for two reasons, it is slightly wider than the Nokton I have been using most recently but most important, the lens element is quite far back so not exposed and will not get wet or covered in snow that easy.

Tuesday, 15 January 2013

Took this while out for lunch and while I would have preferred to be closer and get a better shot of the Barbican, I think this works well enough with the more modern steel and glass buildings framing the Barbican tower block.

The Barbican might not have the prettiest buildings you will see in London but it has it's own character and look, at first sight it might not be different from one of the many (and very ugly) council estates but look closer and you see it's far off that.

Sunday, 13 January 2013

Went to see the ice sculptures at Canary Wharf today. I decided to travel light and take a smaller lens for the GXR with me, the Jupiter-8 is a very nice lens and by being f2.0 I figured it should be bright enough even when the light starts fading. It performed very well although at times I wished it were a bit wider to capture more in and have less people walk in front of my picture since I had to stay back quite a bit for some pictures.

This is a small series with some of my favourite pictures, the 3rd is probably my favourite and would have been the picture of the day were it not for me deciding to post the series.

Saturday, 12 January 2013

I am not big into portrait photography since it requires too many accessories like flash, reflectors and so on. When I don't have to worry about this and can just take a picture of a model where the light and everything else is provided, I do like to try some portrait photography.

This picture was developed from RAW using RAW Decoder and then processed with Snapseed on my Nexus 7 while having a coffee. I could have probably done better with taking more time at processing it but still quite like the results and most I like the simplicity of the Nexus 7 at allowing me to view, copy and edit pictures without the need of a computer.

Thursday, 10 January 2013

This is another of my lunchtime pictures, took a walk to the Tate Modern during lunch and went to see the really cool new Tanks extension part.
I do like industrial buildings and the Tate Modern is a very nice building.

Wednesday, 9 January 2013

As you can see this is not one of my lunchtime pictures but has been taken after work while waiting for a friend. And after a busy day in the office it's great to switch off while taking some pictures on the way to get some wine an dinner.

While the Nokton lens is really big and heavy it is nice to know that I can use it at any time of day and in any light, I never need to worry about not being able to take pictures due to the lens or the camera.

Tuesday, 8 January 2013

This is again one of my lunchtime pictures, I like to walk around and take pictures during lunch since it's a nice distraction from work. It also allows me to be creative, something I can't really be in my job.
This is what's great about photography, you can do this at anytime when you have a few minutes spare and it's always a great way to focus on something other than work.

Sunday, 6 January 2013

Took this while out for a walk before dinner, I liked the light and lonely shopping cart there.
Snapseed works very well for pictures with small sensor cameras but less well for the GXR A12-M, some pictures work up to a pint with the GXR A12-M but overall the GRD IV benefits more.

Saturday, 5 January 2013

Just having some fun with the Nexus 4 Photo Sphere and Tiny Planet features, not a prefect stitching but given the light (or lack thereof) it came out quite well. Need to play around with it some more as it's quite fun and I do want to get a perfect Photo Sphere.

I have not found a way to embed the Photo Sphere picture you can see below properly so you have to go to Google+ to see it properly.

Friday, 4 January 2013

Took this while waiting for my next train at London Bridge, Since I don't carry tripods with me it's not always easy to take longer exposure shots but I find something to steady the camera most of the times but not always get the composition I want. On the other hand it's good to improvise at times and make do with what you have.

Thursday, 3 January 2013

Took this while out for a walk during lunch.
While fellow blogger Wouter considers himself at times more a "stroll photographer", I think I can safely say that I am more a 'lunch time photographer' ;).

I took this picture because I liked the effect of the curtain in the front distorting the view of the background, at first I thought to shoot at lower ISO and smaller aperture but I wanted as much DOF as possible. to show more of the effect.

Wednesday, 2 January 2013

Took this while walking back home. I was walking pats this every and tried to take pictures of it before and tried some shots while walking through but none came out well. Today, I finally saw the shot I wanted to get.

Initially I wanted one person in the middle and got it in my first shot, then I decided to try some other shots and get three people in but before I had enough people walk through and be at the right distance I got this one with two people. Now I have the full series from one person to three in the frame but think this one works best.

Tuesday, 1 January 2013

Since everyone is looking back to the previous year, I thought I have a look through my pictures and post my favourite pictures of the year. It turned out to be difficult to narrow down to 12 pictures so I decided to focus on pictures with people for this Best of 2012 post, I might do another post but have not decided.

Hope you like the pictures even if you've seen them already. The pictures are in no particular order.